July 4, 2006

Looks like we're not the only one blowing off rockets on the 4th

Early in his administration, George Bush utterly abandoned the diplomatic process built over years of effort by the Clinton and previous administrations and immediately broke off talks with the isolated North Korean government, headed by the volatile Kim Jong-il.

He blasted North Korea as a member of the "Axis of Evil", and otherwise adopted a stance of belligerence towards the paranoid and potentially dangerous nation. It comes as small surprise that North Korea, feeling more threatened than ever, and with little motivation to do otherwise, moved forward with their nuclear weapon development.

Today, North Korea fired six missiles, including at least one capable of long-range, over the sea of Japan just hours after the U.S. launched the space shuttle Discovery.

Now due to yet another instance of this administration's ham-handed blundering in foreign policy, acting as though they can take over the world, another genie is just about out of the bottle. Bush/Cheney's arrogant belligerence has thrown gasoline on the fire, further threatening global stability.

Are these guys just dying to start WWIII? (if they haven't got us there already)

6 Comments:

When I saw Bill Clinton speak a few years ago he likened North Korea to an attention-starved sibling doing bad things to get attention. As you've pointed out, we gave them attention during one administration and ceased to during another. And as inept as I think the current administration is, I do think if North Korea really posed a threat to us (or Japan for that matter) we would be dealing with them directly and threatening military force. Kim's people are starving and this seems to be the best way to get international attention/aid.

All that being said, the thing that really scares the hell out of me from all of this is the potential to re-militarize the Japanese (beyond the ability to defend itself - think WWII levels). If this ever were to happen I think it could be the shot heard round the world for ww3.

Of all the things we're supposed to be scared about, Japan as a military power just isn't one of them for me.

Even if they did try to militarize, they most certainly wouldn't represent any sort of threat to us, and would no doubt be an ally.

The prospect of Japan becoming some rogue nation going it alone out of some Imperial dream as they did in WWII just ain't gonna happen.

Korea is a nation that is starving, isolated, and whose leadership is desperate to hold on to their power.

The only thing that would push them to do something as suicidal as launching some agression against another country is if Bush continues to theaten them and make the already paranoid Korean leader fear that the U.S. may be plotting a "regime change" as they pulled in another soverign country which was posing no threat to the U.S.

Now suddenly Bush is acting as if he's Ghandi, suddently espousing diplomacy after pushing Korea to the wall. The blustering incompetence of this administration is breathtaking.

Korea is one of the few communist governments left, and of course they feel threatened by Bush, because he's constantly threatened them.

These largely meaningless missle tests are simply Korea's way of saying "Don't mess with us."

If it finally gets Bush's attention and gets the incompetent Condi Rice and others to start behaving like something other than arrogant bullies who believe they can simply dictate how the rest of the world runs their affairs, then it will have been a shrewd move in hindsight.

I can't express how frustrating the incompetence of this administration is to me. They have simply made a mess of everything they've touched, yet inexplicably are still taken seriously.

I can only trust that history will reveal just what an abberation they truly are.

The Bush Admin does not want any distraction from the war on Terr' to a real live enemy.The military cannot sustain another armed occupation of a recognized state. No matter how rouge or how bad Kim's hair looks!

Maybe I should have been more clear about Japan. I'm not the least bit worried about them being our enemy again. Our economies are too joined at the hip for that to ever happen. What I'm worried about is even an accidental strike on Japan by North Korea. The Japanese could become capable of turning North Korea into a parking lot in a matter of months and I don't think they'd be afraid to do so if they thought the US was too strung out to use military force against North Korea (which I think we are). Things would then escalate between China and Japan, etc, and things could quickly get out of hand.

Anyway, I think/hope the Chinese (North Korea's sole friend in all of this) will quash this before it becomes an issue. Brother just needs some food and he'll chill out. :)

TID, I think the first comment referred to a threat TO Japan, not FROM Japan.

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I don't think direct talks NK are a good idea because it's the region's stability that we're trying to support. We need to have the region's buy-in and the region provides far more leverage than direct talks (read: concessions) would.

The threat of a missile hitting the US is greater day-by-day as they try to build weapons systems, but the real threat is to the balance and stability among China, NK, ROK, Russia, and Japan.

We've got to keep all six of us engaged and involved together. These countries are far more dependent on one another than most folks here realize. And that's actually a good thing for stability (especially in the long run) and we should encourage that cooperation/dependency.

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